Monday, September 07, 2009

The Fifth Annual 9/11 Film Festival at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, CA Opens This Week, Held September 9th and 10th.

As we approach the 8th anniversary of the tragedy now known simply as 9/11, those who have studied the events of that day still have a significant body of historically documented unanswered questions. These people are not just "conspiracy theorists" or "crazy leftists." Rather, this group of healthy skeptics is comprised of concerned citizens, including professors, architects, engineers, former military and intelligence officers, airline pilots, scientists, theologians, college students from across many disciplines, and even some former members of the official commission and supporting staff itself.

The corporate mainstream media have largely ignored these issues, airing convenient and popular American myths instead of factual analysis put forth by scholars and independent thinkers, which was the the focus of Professors Huff and Rea in their study published in Censored 2009, Deconstructing Deceit. Given the significance of what these people and their ideas represent, we should all try to do our part to ask more questions and push for a truly independent investigation into the attacks and surrounding events of that day. Further, given the events of 9/11 themselves have been used to justify large swaths of public and foreign policy in ensuing years, it is even more crucial to examine critically and on the basis of facts the events of that day, regardless of where forensic evidence may lead. We owe it to ourselves as a free society to say "no more" to relentless hierarchical information control and propaganda.

This year, in Oakland, CA, the Fifth Annual 9/11 Film Festival will be held at the Grad Lake Theater on Wednesday and Thursday, September 9th and 10th. For more details about films and speakers, please see the festival website and blog.

"Truth comes as a conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as a friend." –Rabindranath Tagore

It's time for a real discussion and investigation. We have to look back in order to see forward with more clarity, more integrity, and more zeal.

5 Comments:

This semi-mainstream article is the closest approach I've seen to some semblance of truth.

9/11 Press for Truth is a middle-of-the-road film that offers non-controversial facts on the subject of coverup and evasion, and wisely avoids digging in to the scientific minutae of nano-thermite and other questions of physics, questions which can barely make sense to a science-illiterate public, even if that constitutes more important evidence.

If there were any facts or narratives that this article missed, and that almost all "conspiracy theorists" miss or underplay, it is this:

The average person assumes that anyone who would promote or applaud a bloodbath on American soil, must be a traitor or an enemy, such as that staged CNN interview with Palestinians who were supposedly cheering 9-11.

Yet what can we say when people from the highest perch of U.S. national security did themselves promote a bloodbath on American soil, with mass death, mass paralyzing terror, as something vital for "American interests"?

What can we say when high-level officials and ex-officials, some on mainstream television news & opinion, continue to promote the idea of new, repeat attacks on America as something desireable?

Yes, Sept 11, far from being a surprise, was a stated foreign/domestic policy GOAL, as described by some of our elite ruling class.

While Osama Bin Laden denounced attacks on innocent civilians (and recognizing Islamists' may have a narrow definition of "innocence" vs. "complicity" in U.S. policy), Americans in long-term high-level foreign policy circles advocated FOR attacks on America, as something.

Not just one, but at least FOUR or FIVE position papers or books were published prior to 9-11 promoting the NEED for such an event. (continued)

Not just one, but at least FOUR or FIVE position papers or books were published prior to 9-11 promoting the NEED for such an event.

The "New Pearl Harbor" idea is not limited to Project for a New American Century. PNAC did push for an invasion of Iraq for a decade, and though their Rebuilding American Defenses policy paper did not directly address pre-planned wars, only a generic "upgrade" of US military capacity, it did state that such an upgrade -- absolutely vital -- was dependent on and linked to an imagined future "Pearl Harbor". Using ancient Socratic or Platonic logic, this imagined "Pearl Harbor" event was equally vital.

Vital, why? To overcome domestic and Congressional resistance to starting wars, as well as Constitutional and Geneva prohibitions against launching pre-emptrive aggressive wars.

And we must ask, vital to whom? Vital to those who advocate US imperialism. Vital to the private military industry, which was dramatically expanded by 9-11, including "mercenary" companies.

Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute rather disgustingly promoted a future "Pearl Harbor" as "lucky" and "providential" in his 1999 book (pub. in 2000), which was publicly cited and entered into the Congressional Record by Representative Ron Paul in his "Neo-Conned" speech. RP said this does not *prove* any conspiracy ... but it sure sounds damn suspicious, doesn't it? And even more suspicious, that none of the mainstream media deems this worthy of discussion, despite being a published quote.

James A. Lindsay wrote a report for the CFR's Foreign Affairs magazine that suggested that "a renewed threat to American security" would "do the trick" to overcoming democratic "new apathy" towards aggressive foreign policy (global war).

Probably the most infamous report/book on this subject was The Grand Chessboard, written in 1997 for the CFR's Foreign Affairs by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski's style of writing contains a lot of high-flown and evasive rhetoric, but the key points are that the management of continued American global hegemony is absolutely vital to America and to the world. This is within the context of a natural process of the decline of absolute American power on the world stage, as the advantages of post World War II industrialism continues to decline (and cheap-wage nations rise). Secondly, that military and covert methods must be applied to extend American imperialism. Thirdly, that some type of "truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat" is critical to pushing Americans to overcome their reticence to "imperial mobilization", with references to "Pearl Harbor" as a model or motif.

I'm trying to locate a fifth major government study I once stumbled across which evoked the same ideas of the benefits of a terrorist attack on America, or more to the point, the "elbow room" for the Pentagon and US Government militarists that would be created by such an attack.

I repeat: Having a major terrorist attack on America was a vital policy GOAL. The people with the power to blow up the world, WANTED America to be blown up. Per more recent statements, some of them WANT an American city to be hit by a nuclear weapon "by Al-Qaeda".

Yet these are the same people we expect to protect us from terrorism and to feed us an accurate narrative of a terrorist threat. Is that right? (continued)

The irrational mental disconnect represented by these two juxtaposed statements is astonishing, shocking, matched only by the vast numbers of people who have never been informed, or worse, refuse to accept this when faced with it.

Even the "9-11 Truth" movement and "We Are Change" seems committed to obsessing on what is the equivalent of ballistics tests around the JFK assassination, while ignoring the larger picture of the politics around that event.

The argument over whether "Al-Qaeda" was involved is not completely devoid of relevance, but certainly must be dwarfed by the point that "orders" (or at least "suggestions") for 9-11 came from within the broad American national security infrastructure, in several years before 9-11. This is so much deeper than "ignored warnings".

When considering the descriptions of the absolutely vital necessity of a terrible attack on American soil, in order to propel Americans into 100 years of war, these planners would have to be utterly stupid to allow any risk of failure inherent in allowing "crazy sandniggers" (in the parlance of some of our military trainers) to pull this off themselves.

What if the Islamists got caught? What if they chickened out? That would mean the same roadblocks to launching a Permanent War on Terror and the end of US hegemony --- according to the planners.

The only sensible no-fail track would be computer-run remote controlled attacks, using every sophisticated tool of our military-industrial complex to assure the success of 9-11.

It would also make sense to direct terrorist patsies though the background, to leave a suspicious trail of paper and other evidence, to help create the necessary narrative. Mainstream media did report sporadically that the so-called terrorists were involved with FBI, CIA, and appeared in meetings on US military bases.

Just as there was a lot of evidence showing that Lee Harvey Oswald was a government operative and not a "lone nut", there is plenty of evidence that the so-called terrorists were not "outside agents" to the US military-industrial-intelligence-security complex. Dr. Michel Chossudovsky reported on a number of items, one of which was a Senate Republican Policy Committee study describing Pentagon and contractor joint operations w Al-Qaeda throughout the late 90s and right up to the summer of 2001.

The ongoing partnership between the US military and "Al-Qaeda" or related forces --- and similar situations after 9-11 --- 100% disproves the "outside attack" narrative.